Hi folks,

Have you heard of forced rhubarb? I recently planted some Champagne Rhubarb seed, which is a variety perfect for this niche thing. Basically, you cover your emerging rhubarb plant in late winter to exclude light. This forces the plant to put all its energy into creating sweeter, more intensely pink stalks that are ready to eat earlier than regular rhubarb.

In England, they grow them in caves and pick by candlelight to preserve the quality. Can you imagine?! Now, unfortunately, I don’t have a cave. But I will be putting trash cans (not quite as romantic 🤣) over these plants to produce the same effect. Nature is amazing.

I spent the last week cleaning and downsizing my parents’ house in Maryland. Picture epic snow and ice storm, plus a 20-yard dumpster. It was quite a week.

Throughout the work, I listened to my favorite new podcast, The Nature Of (seriously - go listen to all of them). The very eloquent and wise host, Willow Defebaugh, made this passing comment that knocked my socks off. She said, “The land’s work is breaking the spell of scarcity.”

I mean - mic drop moment, right?

To me, this solidified so much. Working with the land, connecting to it, and basing my daily and seasonal rhythms on it have helped ease my personal feelings of scarcity. Plants are extraordinarily generous in their food, seeds, and beauty. Growing a garden feels like the ultimate antidote to feeling scarce.

I’m offering one more beeswax candle dipping class this winter. It’s next Sunday, February 15th, from 2-4 pm at Ritual House Yoga Studio in Capitol Hill. Join us around the wax pot!

I’m excited to be doing another Centrum art residency towards the end of the month to explore my beeswax candle art practice. What am I going to make? Only time will tell…

It’s not too late to join the Spring Flower CSA in Seattle or Port Townsend. I’ve got a few spots left.

Spring flowers that I’m most excited about this year?

• Butterfly ranunculus Keramos. Chef’s kiss.

• Early sweet peas. A fragrant OG favorite. I grow them in the greenhouse for extra early blooms and cut them as a full vine that continues to open in the vase.

• Flowering currant. Bees love the sweetly scented native pink, and the white hybrid is a new one for me this year.

• Bleeding hearts. These old-fashioned babes are tough as nails. Impossible to kill, and deer don’t bother them.

• Spirea thungbergii. The most delicate and whimsical of the spirea. Impossible to find! I took cuttings from a bush at the school I used to teach at on Orcas many moons ago. (The best little school out there - Salmonberry School.)

I’d love to start offering a free community classifieds section in my newsletters! If you have something to share - a service, an event, an offering, or maybe even something for sale for the general Western Washington area - you can send me a couple sentence ‘ad’ and a link. I’d love to connect my community with your work!

Sending you maybe a sliver more winter before we’re through,

Emmy and Kai (and Pip and every so many ducks)